Putting fresh, local, sustainably grown vegetables on the table of everyone in our community is the aim of an organization called City Fresh.

City Fresh is a Cuyahoga County nonprofit program of the New Agrarian Center that supports the creation of a sustainable local food system in Northeast Ohio. Founded by Brad Masi, the program was meant to address the needs of those who are most at-risk within our community.

The New Agrarian Center is committed to building a stronger and more sustainable regional food system in Northeast Ohio: a food system that promotes health in the broadest sense of the word -- healthy land, healthy communities, healthy individuals and a healthy economy.

Earlier this month, a diverse group of loosely affiliated organizations came together to facilitate the Growing Hope Food Summit. Community members were invited to the summit to assist in creating a shared awareness of our local food system and its gaps, to help launch a movement to increase access to healthy food, explore ways to strengthen the local food economy and connect and empower Summit County residents to act collectively.

After the release of the Community Health Assessment in March, completed for the five- county local area on behalf of three area hospitals, an interest in fresh healthy food was found to be high among all categories of participants. Thus was created the Growing Hope Food Summit, produced by Round River Consulting and staged with efforts of the Summit Food Policy Coalition, Akron Summit Community Action, Inc. and many others.  Hosted at St. Joseph’s Family Center April 1 and 2, free daycare was available, and the Mustard Seed Market provided lunch.

When most people think of a "food scene," images of fancy restaurants, famous chefs and well dressed people lounging around drinking wine and eating appetizers springs to mind.  This is the stuff of glossy magazine articles and weekly newspaper columns. 

Local "foodies" (a term used to describe those that love food in all its iterations) can easily tell you who the up-and-coming chefs are in the area and which ones are opening new restaurants. They can rattle off the names of local wine shops where they gather to taste the new releases of wines from around the world.

And the Akron food scene is all that and yet, so much more. Or so much less, depending upon your point of view.

This evening the community was invited to visit Ms. Julie's Kitchen on South Main Street where the good folks from TreeHouse Organics chatted with us about their family of local organic farmers, master gardeners, green growers, beekeepers and craftspeople.

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of how we, as a population, interact with the food world around us. We question whether we are treating our environment in ways that are sustainable for future generations, whether the way we grow our food is healthy for us as well as the animals bred to feed us, and whether, as a culture, we’re doing the right things to maintain healthy families.

We are beginning to pay more attention to where our food comes from, how it’s raised, how it’s processed and how it gets into our bodies. From massive poultry businesses to quality control in food distribution to putting meals on our tables, we are asking more questions and not always liking the answers we are being given.